


Ghost At The Festival

by Rubynye



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Happy, F/M, M/M, Multi, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 14:29:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19947694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: He only meant to look in for a moment.





	Ghost At The Festival

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Omnicat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omnicat/gifts).



> Hello, Omnicat! I hope you enjoy this!

He only meant to look in for a moment. The cathedral was huge and packed — why wouldn’t it be, when two beautiful war heroes were celebrating their wedding that day? Thinking himself lost in the cheerful crowd, he raised his face to the luminous white walls, to the rainbow light pouring through the stained glass windows, to the raised dais at the altar where they stood, gazes locked and hands entwined as they recited their vows. This was what he came to watch, his two lovers uniting in their love, and as they leaned into their kiss, the corner of his own mouth creaked into an unfamiliar smile. 

He should have turned away then, as the crowd cooed and cheered around him, before they could lean back from each other and turn towards all their admirers, but he had to watch, his heart aching with joy. He had to see as he blushed and she beamed, both their smiles shining, as they raised their held hands victoriously and everyone applauded. Over all the noise he heard Dugan’s clear booming shout, and helplessly smiled on both sides of his mouth.

And so they caught him. Peggy spotted him first, her lush mouth forming a red ring of surprise, her fine-brushed eyebrows arching high. Steve blinked as he saw her expression, face shifting into dismay and then square-jawed alertness. Even now, he could have ducked and turned and run, but he couldn’t, feet rooted to the ground as he watched Steve’s eyes widen till their blue blazed all the way down the aisle, as he saw them glance to each other, Peggy’s hand already rising, lifting her bouquet to Steve’s.

That was when Bucky finally unstuck his feet from the floor, finally stepped back into the hole opening in the murmuring crowd as they sought and found the focus of the newlyweds’ shock. But it was too late, as Steve’s arm swung high, ripping his suit’s sleeve open at the armpit, and he flung the bouquet the length of the aisle, straight into Bucky’s face.

Bucky reached up to catch it, to block it as it whirled end over end towards him, but he reached with his clumsy left arm and his unbalanced right hand missed the grab and his vision exploded into a flurry of roses and ferns. By the time he batted it down Steve was halfway down the aisle, running flat out, and Peggy had two fists hoisting her skirts as she ran only a few yards behind him, and Bucky was truly caught. All he could do was stand and brace for impact, watching Steve’s blazing eyes right up until Steve tackled him bodily to the flag-paved church floor, his whole big body heaving.

“Steve,” Bucky wheezed, and a moment later Peggy descended on them both in a cloud of lace and sweet perfume, her cheek pressed to his, her arm strong around his neck.

“Buck,” Steve puffed into his hair, broad hand gripping his face. “Bucky. I thought you were dead.”

* * *

Everything went a bit pear-shaped after that. 

Everyone present who knew him came charging at Bucky from all sides, and that turned out to be a lot of people. Steve was making a human bridge of himself, arched protectively over Peggy as she wrapped herself around Bucky, who lay flat on flagstones, swimming in tulle and lace and perfume with Peggy’s cheek pressed to his, as the crowd’s noise swelled from a sea’s murmuring to an oceanic roar, until a high scream split through. Bucky looked over, Peggy looking with him, as a blue flurry pushing through the crowd resolved into his sister Becca just as she shoved in under Steve’s arm and wrapped her arms around Bucky’s neck. “You’re dead!” She shrieked, over and over between kissing his cheek and forehead like punches. “I thought you were!”

“I know, dear,” said Peggy soothingly, as more familiar voices boomed in the distance, getting nearer. “We all did.”

“Gonna crush the life outta him,” Steve rumbled, which made Peggy and Becca laugh at him, but he sat back and they sat up, still wrapped around Bucky from both sides, as Dugan and Jones appeared, broad and tall, casting a shadow as they bent to haul everyone up. 

“Give ‘em space!” Dugan shouted from the bottom of his lungs, and the crowd backed off a little, enough to let them up onto their feet. 

“This way,” Gabe murmured in Peggy’s ear, taking her hand, and Bucky felt her grab Steve’s behind his back as Steve grabbed his elbow, as hands brushed his shoulders and voices brushed his cheeks, as Gabe towed them through the crowd. Becca shrieked again behind them, arguing with someone, but the was a safe place, she was _fine_ and Bucky was between Steve and Peggy, being carried off by them like always, off into a small antechamber with, as he saw when Gabe pulled it shut behind them and Steve turned the toggle, a locking door. 

“Bucky,” he heard, in Steve’s hushed voice, and Peggy whispering, “shh, shh,” as a soft chair pressed behind his knees and under his thighs and back, as tulle fell across his legs and they pressed in from either side, warm and close. “Buck?”

“Holy shit,” Bucky muttered, and Peggy giggled, close enough to feel like a soft kiss under his ear, as Steve pulled in a dramatic breath. Bucky looked over at his drawn-down eyebrows and sparkling eyes, just as Steve was about to scold him for cursing in a church, and he knew he remembered that look though he couldn’t remember from where or when, and then his eyes were closed and Steve’s mouth was soft and warmly open crushed against his, as they kissed, forcefully, eagerly.

It was Peggy’s turn to gasp and Bucky’s to turn to her, Steve’s kiss smearing across his cheek, and she lunged in, kissing Bucky just as hard, just as sweetly, with a bossy push of slick tongue that made him laugh and grip her hand as they kissed. “Oh,” he couldn’t help exhaling as she pulled away. “Oh, I’m dreaming.”

“No, I am,” Steve said, low and serious and joyful, as Bucky looked back to him. “I’m married to Peggy and I have you back. I must be — ow!” As Peggy briskly dug her nails into his thumb, and Bucky felt his cheeks creak with the unaccustomed stretch of a smile.

“No, we’re awake,” she announced, “all three of us, the two of us and our miracle.” He looked into her luminous brown eyes, seeing the question there, and felt a squirm of complicated emotions inside him.

“I don’t know,” he told her, because he could look into her eyes, because he could feel Steve’s blazing blue as gas fires, because he couldn’t dare look at Steve right now. “Someone found me, dragged me through the snow, but I barely remember, and… and not all of me.” Bucky looked down now, at the arm Peggy leaned on, lifting his hand just enough to flex the fingers he could control but not feel. “My glove.”

Steve reached over, pressing like a warm wall to Bucky’s right side, and together he and Peggy pulled the glove away, simultaneously they gasped. Bucky knew he’d heard that sound before, their twinned gasps, hot in his ear, deep in some welcome darkness; now it was shock as they stared down at his shining metal palm, as Peggy groped up his arm, feeling the metal beneath the sleeves until she pressed her fingertips into his scarred shoulder and he swallowed his own hiss but still shook, just a little.

Just enough. “Oh, Barnes,” Peggy murmured, as Steve’s forehead pressed to his cheek. “Who …” as even she trailed off, uncertain of her words. _Who gave this to you? Who did this to you?_

Bucky swallowed, and steeled himself, and said, “Zola.”

Steve threw his head up, his gaze locking with Peggy’s as they thought in unison like he knew he’d seen before, memories wrapped in fog from during the war. “Zola,” they muttered together, and Peggy pressed her cheek in under Bucky’s chin, and Steve caught him in those blue eyes. 

“We knew he was up to something,” Steve told him, fierce as ever, angry and beautiful. “Peggy laid out the proof, we made them listen, we went to confront him, found his lab, found him dead. We should’ve found you.”

“I know he’s dead,” Bucky murmured back, “I killed him.” Peggy nodded under his chin, Steve nodded almost nose to nose with him, but his eyes were full of the question, full of guilt. “I didn’t know… who I was, yet. He was clearing out my mind, he and his soft-talking friend.”

“Feinhoff,” Peggy supplied. “He won’t be using that voice anymore.” Her voice was hard, her cheek and arms so soft, and Bucky dragged himself from Steve to look to her again, so she raised her head, raised her hand to his cheek. “You’re safe. You’re back with us where you belong.”

“Peggy?” Steve asked, several questions in her name, questions Bucky wanted to ask too. He could feel the lush familiarity of being pinned between them, even if he couldn’t yet recall the sweet moments when it must have happened, but still, this was their wedding day.

She smiled past Bucky, at Steve. “Remember what Aunt Mildred said? ‘He too is Alexander’? I’ve always known so, too.” Steve inhaled, loud and shaky as — as when? — but Peggy had turned her bottomless eyes back to Bucky. “He walked into this church a widower remarrying. And I,” as color rose in her cheeks deeper than the rouge, “I missed you too, Barnes. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“That’s my line,” Steve murmured, voice low and deep, and Bucky’s throat was tight with joy, his heart expanding within him, bursting all its scars. “Bucky. Stay with us?”

“Steve,” was all Bucky could say in return. “Peggy. Yes.”

She laughed, triumphantly, wild around the edges, and Steve slammed his head back with another hard kiss, their hands winding into a knot over his heart, and when Steve let him up it was only so Peggy could kiss him just as fiercely. 

Bucky came up warm and winded and blinking at a memory of Steve going on and on about his Major Carter, and pulled up out of himself, “So he finally made his move, huh?” so he could watch them both smile.

Steve blushed, bright in his clean-shaven cheek, as Peggy laughed again. “He drew me. He drew me as the Victory of Samothrace, with sword aloft, with his shield. He drew me like a goddess.”

“You are,” Steve muttered, very low, and she shone her smile on him before continuing.

“He drew me like that, and I, well, after we’d recovered from my reaction he offered to make an honest woman of me.” She dimpled, and Bucky felt a bubbling in his chest, almost as if he could laugh. They looked at each other, their hands pressing together over his heart, and they were so beautiful, and he really was alive, after Zola, after everything. “We framed it,” she said, more soberly, “watertight, and left it on your cenotaph. So you must come back with us to go retrieve it.”

Bucky looked to Steve, who nodded. “What Peggy says goes.”

“I’ll remind you that you said so,” Peggy told him, and Steve turned smiling to her as she leaned in to kiss him, tipping his head back just how Bucky knew he liked. When they came up from it both of them were pink-cheeked, and Peggy’s eyes sparkled as she added, “And I get to roger our Captain Rogers first.”

Steve spluttered into laughter, pulling his hand from behind Bucky to cover his face, and the words rose up out of Bucky from the past, from his heart. “Play cards for him?” 

Peggy laughed, head tipped back and teeth shining, and was just inhaling to tease in return when the door started shaking under blows and calls. They all looked over, sighing as they remembered the curious crowd outside.

A rattle from the other side, and just as Peggy said, “But that’s a closet—?” That door popped open and Becca stumbled in, hairpin in hand. 

“Found you!” She shouted, throwing up her hands. “These old churches always have back passages!”

“Come on, then,” Steve said, chuckling, “You’ve earned it,” and he and Peggy pulled back to let Becca hug Bucky with all her strength. They stood up, hand in hand, and Bucky looked up at them over her curly head, then at her, her bright face and cleft chin so much like his own reflected in water and smeared mirrors, and so different, so full of life. 

“You’re back,” Becca said, smiling up at him, and above him Steve and Peggy stood united and radiant.

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed, smiling at her, smiling for them. “Yeah, I’m back.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "Marrying a Second Person Because You Assumed Your Spouse Was Dead But It Turns Out They're Not"


End file.
